


rejoice because thorns have roses

by ragequilt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Florist AU, Gen, Lance matchmakes and OC is out of the loop, Modern AU, Pre-Relationship, specifically lance is a florist au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 06:25:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16279379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragequilt/pseuds/ragequilt
Summary: "Do you want to run the counter for a little while? I wouldn't ask, but...""But we can't leave until you're done, and I'm just twiddling my thumbs?" In the six months Lance has had the shop, he's done every bit of it on his own, excepting the day he came in to set everything up."Really?""Yeah? Of course." If he wasn't so stubborn, she would have helped ages ago. But Lance is proud, and she didn't want to step on his toes. "Show me how to use the register?"--Lance owns a flower shop downtown, Ezkir helps run the front counter for a lack of anything better to do, and somehow ends up going to dinner with Keith, who she's never met before.





	rejoice because thorns have roses

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Alphonse Karr's "a letter from my garden".
> 
> Also it's worth mentioning  
> a) this is a completely self-indulgent  
> i) i'm serious about that. this is an au of the 50k of fic i have that ezkir actually lives in, but several of the keithtober prompts caught my eye and somehow here i am  
> ii) if i could bear to write any more second person pov fic i would have just done that. treat this like it's reader insert fic. it's how i feel, anyway  
> b) i know nothing about floristry or anything else, including but not limited to how restaurants work, how to own your own business, or walking  
> c) all errors are my own. i am open to SPAG corrections, though if you could be kind when you provide them that would be the best for me  
> d) seriously. self indulgent garbage

It’s just past five on Friday, and Ezkir is patiently waiting for Lance’s day to end so they can go to dinner, really. She doesn’t have anything better to do; sitting at home was getting boring, and the slowly setting sun had made for a beautiful backdrop for her walk over. 

“I’m sorry you’re stuck waiting on me,” Lance says. He’s brought some of the materials for the arrangement he’s making out to the front of the shop, but he looks cramped, crammed onto the counter behind the register with it all. 

“I mean, it’s not a secret that you close at 6:30,” she says, glancing at the front of the store when the door opens with a little jingle. The customer looks like some kind of businessman, clean cut and professional in (from what she can tell) a nice suit. 

Lance calls a hello to him, a ‘let me know if you need anything!’ and she watches as the man zeroes in on the coolers of bouquets along the wall. She doesn’t know much about flowers — she can identify roses and that’s about it, honestly — but she knows the bouquets that Lance puts together are beautiful. She’s never received flowers herself, but she thinks if she were to get one of these, it’d be the best one. 

The man deliberates for a little bit, opening one door and then another to peek inside, like things look different through the glass, and he eventually decides on a bright yellow bunch. He’s wearing a smile when he approaches the register, and Lance sets down the flower and the knife he’s been working with.

“Did you find everything alright?” Lance asks, typing in the price on the tag into the register and putting on his ‘customer service’ voice. The few times she’s called the store phone and gotten the false-positive attitude have cracked her up every time — not that Lance isn’t a positive guy, but it’s just not the same. 

The man gives his assent and his credit card when Lance reads out his total, and once Lance runs the card he takes the bouquet and slips it into a sleeve. The man hadn’t picked up one from over by the coolers, and it’s dripping water all over the counter now because of it. 

“Thank you, have a good night,” Lance says, passing the receipt and credit card back to the man, and he gets a nod for his trouble. 

Someone else comes in just as he leaves, and Lance is more or less stuck at the counter for the next twenty minutes as people enter, make a bee line for the coolers, and come straight to the counter to pay. 

She glances back at the arrangement he’s been working on, and then up at the clock. He’d said there were several he still had to do before he left for the night, whether it was closing time or not, and…

“I have a proposition,” he says just as she’s opening her mouth to speak. 

“Go on,” she says, agreeable because she’s pretty sure they’ve had the same thought.

“Do you want to run the counter for a little while? I wouldn’t ask, but…”

“But we can’t leave until you’re done, and I’m just twiddling my thumbs?” she finishes the thought for him, sliding off the stool she’s been perched on for the last half-hour. “I’m okay with that.”

“Really?” In the six months Lance has had the shop, he’s done every bit of it on his own — the only exception being when he first came in to set everything up. Hunk had helped put in the counter and the coolers, and Ezkir is still proud of the display she’d put together of artificial flowers. Even Veronica had been able to come up for the weekend and lend a hand, though she mostly supervised while Lance worked himself up into a lather over the fact that his dream was really coming together. 

“Yeah? Of course.” She shrugs. If he wasn’t so stubborn, she would have helped ages ago. Watching him juggle trying to eat his lunch and helping customers killed her just a little, but… Lance is also proud, and she didn’t want to step on his toes. “Show me how to use the register?”

“You’re the best,” he says, and lays a smacking wet kiss on her cheek when she comes to stand beside him. From anyone else, she wouldn’t take it, but Lance is a special exception.

 

* * *

 

Lance has said it more than once, but she really understands it now that she’s more-or-less responsible for the front of the shop — Friday nights are  _busy_. The shop is on the far end of Main Street, distant enough that he’s avoided some of the more ridiculous rent prices and close enough that he sees  _a lot_  of traffic from people buying last-minute flowers on their way to the restaurants that are further downtown. And boy, do people buy last-minute flowers. 

Mostly, she’s just grateful that the people coming in don’t seem to need much help with anything. There’s no shopping around happening — they zero in on the bouquets and completely ignore the cute gift ideas that Lance has artistically arranged near the coolers. She does manage to upset chocolate assortments to a couple of people, but most everyone is in what seems like a serious hurry, and it shows when they speak to her. 

It’s honestly not bad work. She draws on the six years of retail experience she got in high school and college, puts on her own ‘customer service’ voice, and lets her brain run on autopilot. The clock is slowly ticking away towards six, and she knows from experience that the six to six-thirty crowd is even more harried than the five to six one. She’s spent enough Friday nights kicking around watching Lance work and hanging out to know that. All the other florists in town are closed by then, and Lance is the last real option before Walmart and Kroger.

The customer in the shop at the moment is paying for a pre-ordered arrangement that Lance had put together for him. It’s full of pale blue-white flowers, and while she pops up the last cardboard box she found under the register, he tells her all about why he’s buying them at all. Apparently his wife is in the hospital, recovering from a rough appendectomy, and the  _hydrangeas_ are her favorite flower. It’s really sweet, honestly, and she tells him so. The warm smile on his face as he leaves makes her happy, though there is a distant part of her that wonders what causes people to share their lives with retail employees. 

She’s counting down the time now until 6:30 — a couple of people poke their heads in curiously before leaving without buying things, and she picks up her phone to scroll through Facebook because it’s more entertaining than staring at the door waiting for someone to come through. 

6:25 — it’s almost time. Of course, someone come in just as she thinks so, and she fumbles to put away her phone even as she calls him a hello. Her (hopefully) last customer is a handsome guy, silver-haired and dressed to kill. He’s far enough away that she can’t see much of his face, but when he opens the cooler that Lance keeps almost exclusively full of roses and begins to grumble, she can hear him. 

Her knowledge is limited, but she can’t ignore him in good conscience. In her experience, most people are appeased by a ‘I don’t know what I’m doing but I’ll do my best for you’ attitude. She comes around the counter and by the time she makes it over to the cooler — and it’s really not that far — he’s sounds like he’s moved on from being grumbly and straight into pissed. 

Still. “Can I help you find anything?” she asks as sweetly as she can, now that she’s within polite speaking distance. She puts her best smile on, hoping it’s an issue with an easy solution. With the way he’s staring at the roses as if they’ve personally offended him — and the way he turns that look on her — she thinks her hopes are going unheard. 

“Why do these all look like this?” he complains, and she sticks her head around the door just to see him roughly pinch the red petals on the bouquet closest to him. As far as she can tell, they look like normal roses. They’re not wilting or anything…

“What is it that you don’t like about them?” she asks, because — maybe this is a knowledge gap issue and he has a legitimate problem. Her instincts are telling her that none of that is true, but there’s nothing she can do about that. He gives her a look somehow worse than the first one, and she has to bite her tongue to keep from saying something she’d regret. This is Lance’s livelihood, and she needs to be polite to this guy for that reason alone. “Would you like for me to see if we have some in the back that haven’t made it out yet? They may be more to your liking,” she tries, even though she knows enough about Lance’s schedule that she’s pretty sure there’s nothing in the back for this guy. 

“I can’t believe you even have to ask,” he scoffs, letting the door fall shut and crossing his arms. “I need a bouquet of red roses, and they  _have_  to be perfect.”

It takes every ounce of her willpower to smile and nod at him before she leaves to go find Lance. She only barely keeps herself from stomping across the floor. She is  _better_ than this, but his rude attitude is really rubbing her the wrong way.

“Lance,” she says, pushing open the door to the back room and approaching the table where he’s hard at work. She lays her hands flat on the table and takes a deep breath — he’s cutting a few more stems, and he’s not going to look up until he’s done if it can be avoided. She knows that.

Once the last pink-purple flower has been cut, he turns his attention to her. “What’s up? Register giving you trouble?”

“No,” she grits out, takes another deep breath. She’s so out of practice in dealing with this. “I— just. Do you have any more roses back here?”

“…no? I just put some more out this morning. Are we out already? I know it’s a busy night but —”

“No,” she sighs, cutting him off. “There’s a guy out there that thinks the ones we have are  _just not good enough_. He needs a ‘bouquet of red roses, and they have to be perfect,’” she repeats, mocking him with air quotes around the whole thing. When she puts her hands back down on the table, she can feel herself trembling just a little. 

The bell on the counter by the register rings, and she resists the urge to cover her face with her hands. This guy has gotten under her skin in the worst way. 

“I’ll take care of him, Ez. Give me just a second, okay? Let him know I’ll be right out.”

“Okay,” she says, heaves a sigh. “Thank you, Lance.”

The bell rings again, impatient, and she resolutely strides out of the back room, irritation held as far at bay as she can get it.

Except, the customer ringing the bell is not her problem customer. It’s past 6:30 now, but she hadn’t flipped the sign to closed, so it’s not like she could turn him away either. She gives him a quick smile as she comes around the counter. “I’ll be right with you, okay?”

The silver-haired man is tapping something out on his phone when she approaches, and he turns his nose up at her when she interrupts what is probably an epic twitter rant or something. He looks like the type.

“Lance will be out in just a moment,” she says as patiently as she can. “He’s the owner, so if anyone can find you the perfect flowers, it’s him.”

He scoffs at her and turns his attention back to his phone, and the fact that he doesn’t even give her a verbal reply ratchets the tension in her spine a little bit tighter. What a dick. 

Her message is relayed, though, which means she’s free from this guy and can go help her customer at the counter. On the way by the front door she flips the sign from OPEN to CLOSED just in case anyone else comes by. She uses the walk back to the register to try to force her customer service persona back on, focusing on the details of the person waiting on her as a distraction. He’s taller than her by a little, and he’s got his dark hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail. He’s not dressed anything like the other people that have come through so far tonight — there’s no suit and tie. He’s not even wearing  _jeans_. Looks more like he just came from working out, if his loose pants and tanktop are anything to go by. 

“I’m sorry for your wait,” she tells him, persona fully reapplied. Pretending that the jerk in the corner isn’t there is an easy way to make it so that her neutral smile can come back. 

“It’s no problem,” he says. His face and the timbre of his voice make it so that a much less neutral smile is fighting for space on her face. “I’m here to pick up an arrangement.”

That explains his empty hands, and she looks at the sticky note Lance has stuck to the side of the register screen. “Of course. What’s the name on the order?” 

“Allura Altea,” he says, and … wow. Lance had to have freaked when he got that order. Altea Tech is huge, and Allura is a big name in that herself. From what Ezkir remembers reading in the news, her father is getting ready to retire and pass the company on to her… Maybe this was her boyfriend, here to get her a congratulatory arrangement?

Except, her name isn’t on the sticky note list. And — yes, it’s a  _sticky note list_ , but Lance is meticulous about not forgetting orders. “Okay. Let me go see where we have it,” she says, giving him her ‘nothing to worry about here!’ face. Hopefully it’s convincing, and hopefully Lance just forgot to write down the order on the note or something. She can’t deal with two unhappy customers in this confined space at once.

“Please tell me you have an arrangement for Altea back here,” she says, sticking her head around the door. Lance is tying a velvet ribbon into a bow around the vase he’d filled with the pink-purple flowers, and he gives her the ‘ta da!’ look when he holds it out to her.

“Right here, baby! I am a master of perfect timing,” he says, self-congratulatory, and she can’t help but laugh at him a little. She pushes the door open the rest of the way and takes the vase from him as soon as he’s close enough to pass it off. He has other troubles, after all. 

“Keith!” he exclaims, going in for a fist bump with the customer standing at the counter. Ezkir sets the vase down on the counter and uses the fact that he’s distracted to root around for some more boxes. Lance has to have some somewhere…

“Lance,” Keith says, and the dryness of his voice sends a little shiver down her spine. Sure, he’s probably taken, but that doesn’t make her unobservant. 

“How do you like my new employee?” Lance asks, and she scoffs at him from where she’s started looking behind the big box of ribbon that Lance keeps underneath the counter on the left wall. 

Before she can say “this is unpaid labor,” though, the total ray of sunshine in the corner speaks up — she can hear his voice, but whatever he says comes through muffled. The consequences of sticking ones head into tiny places, really.

“Excuse me?” Lance is saying, sounding upset and on his way to mad, and she gives up on her box hunt to lean up far enough that she can see what’s going on. 

Lance has swept around the counter and even Keith has turned to look at the other customer, and she is relieved to know that no one will be paying attention to her not working on the task at hand. 

“If you’re so  _desperate_ for perfect roses as I was told you were, I think you should rethink what you have to say about my friend.” Lance is — definitely pissed. She wonders what the guy said about her, distantly, but it’s not like she’ll ask later.

“Maybe you should get an employee that knows something about how to care for flowers, and then you wouldn’t have this problem,” the man says, arms crossed and looking pretty irritated himself. “You’re wasting your payroll on an idiot.” Ouch.

“That’s uncalled for,” Keith says, stepping away from the counter. The desire to watch versus the desire to avoid conflict are warring inside of her, but she stays where she is. 

“If you want a bouquet that isn’t from a  _grocery store_ ,” Lance drawls — and she knows exactly how he feels about grocery store bouquets — “you need to apologize.” 

Keith and Lance are presenting a unified front, standing between the guy and the counter, but she can see enough to watch him reach in and pull out the rose bouquet that he’d been complaining about in the beginning of this mess. They step apart to let him approach the register, and as Ezkir stands up she wonders… what is the best way for her to handle this? Does she play dumb and pretend she hasn’t noticed anything he’s said? The ‘idiot’ comment is really bothering her, but… For the sake of Lance’s Yelp reviews or whatever, she’ll be the bigger person.

She plasters on her best and definitely fakest smile, and reaches across the counter to take the bouquet before he can set it down. It’s had a hard enough time, and she doesn’t really want to give him further reason to complain if he crushes his own flowers against the countertop. 

“I was serious about the apology,” Lance says as she’s typing the price into the register. He’s propped up on one elbow on the space of counter just on the other side of it, and she looks up at him as he says it. 

“I’m not apologizing to your worthless employee. Give me the flowers,” the man demands, and — okay. Playing dumb is becoming unbearable. In what world do people talk to people like this? She didn’t even turn down an expired coupon from him or something. 

Lance glances over at her, saying something with his eyebrows, and she feels her smile curl up into something that shows how she  _really_ feels all on its own. Every insecurity she’s ever had about ‘having too many teeth’ gets pushed aside when it means she can feel like a wild animal like this. 

She takes two steps away, back towards the wall that separates the store into two rooms, and drops the roses into the trash can near the door. “I think you should go,” she says, grin growing impossibly wider. The guy looks like he’s going to complain — she can see it in the way he opens his mouth — but Keith wraps an insistent hand around his shoulder and steers him towards the door even as he begins his diatribe. 

She doesn’t know  _who_ Keith is to Lance, but she’s feeling pretty grateful that he’s here, right now. 

Lance follows them to front, and when Keith is back inside and the guy is out on the sidewalk, he flicks the lock shut. The guy is  _pissed_ , and she thinks for a moment that he’s going to cause some kind of scene on the sidewalk, but he storms away instead.

Now that he’s gone, she pulls the roses back out of the trash. There’s not anything else in the bag except for some papers, and dropping them upright means that maybe they aren’t terribly damaged. Lance will probably be able to save at least a few of them.

“That’s a small price to pay for making a point,” Lance says, appearing beside her and taking the flowers from her hands. And reading her mind, too, which is no real point.

“Some people never change,” Keith says from the counter, and — 

Right. He has an order. For Allura Altea. 

“Lance, I need more boxes,” she says before he can get caught up in the roses. “I don’t know where you keep the extras.”

He pulls them out of what might as well be thin air, and her mood is too good thanks to the sudden turn of events to be bothered about it. She slides all but one into their home beneath the register and folds the last one together on autopilot. “I’m terribly sorry for your wait,” she says, pretending that a) Lance doesn’t know him and b) she’s not shaking all over now that the adrenaline is leaving her body. It’s all that she knows to do.

“Psh,” Lance says form behind her. He’s not actually looking at them, instead doing bouquet surgery on the other counter. “Keith here is my good buddy. He’s not in any hurry, don’t worry about it.”

“Good to know you know my evening plans,” Keith snarks back at him, but when she looks up from settling the vase into the box, he’s got a smile on his face. 

“Y’know,” Lance says, coming up beside her now, surgery over. “I may not be able to make dinner at all.”

“What?” She can’t help but feel scandalized. “I’m starving. I ran your counter for you.” She puts the back of her hand against her forehead. “I was  _unpaid labor_  for you,” she finishes, because Lane loves dramatics, and also… seriously.

“You’re right,” he agrees. Maybe the last fifteen minutes have been some kind of fever dream and she’s actually unconscious on the floor or something, because nothing is making sense. He pushes the doctored bouquet into her hands. “Keith, take Ezkir to dinner for me. I’ll deliver these myself.” There is really a lot going on.

“I…” She looks at Keith, because if this  _is_ real life, he’s the only sane person in the room right now. He is giving Lance a  _look_. A look that says ‘I’m not here to run your errands’.

“Okay,” is what he says, though, nodding at Lance.  _What_. She’s clearly missing something. “Did you have somewhere in mind?” He’s looking at her now, and — there’s no telling what kind of expression she’s wearing right now.

“You don’t have to do this. It’s not a big deal.” Did she have her heart set on going out to dinner? Yes. Could she walk home and cook something? Also yes.

“She likes burgers,” Lance interjects, cutting off her train of thought. Technically correct, but — seriously. She whips her head around to give him a  _look_ of her own, but it doesn’t work. He’s immune. “I think Hunk picked up a shift to give Shay a hand at Balmera, up the street?” He’s mostly talking to Keith — it’s not like Ezkir doesn’t know where it is. 

Balmera  _does_ have the best burgers on Main Street, if not in town.

“Is that fine with you?” Keith asks, looking at her expectantly, and she can only nod. There’s no talking her way out of this with Lance determined to see her off.

“Have a good time!” Lance calls as they leave, and even when she gives him the evil eye he doesn’t falter.

 

* * *

 

Out on the sidewalk and out of Lance’s line of sight, Ezkir is free. “Hey,” she says, catching Keith’s attention and causing him to stop walking. She steps off to the side, out of the way of foot traffic, and he comes closer. It’s loud enough already that it’s getting difficult to hear, and it’s not even late yet.

“What’s up?” he asks, tucking his hands into his pockets. He looks unperturbed by the entire state of affairs they’ve just been through. She doesn’t know if she’s jealous or if it bugs her.

“I… I feel weird about this,” she says, glancing at his face and then away, over his shoulder. She just ‘met’ him less than twenty minutes ago. 

“Is that a statement or a question?” he says before she can continue, and… maybe she’s more on the side of being annoyed. He and Lance are  _definitely_ friends.

“I feel weird about this,” she tries again, giving him a ‘so there!’ sort of look. “I know you and Lance are friends, but you don’t have to go along with this for my sake. Just because something came up, or whatever, doesn’t mean you’re obligated. You can go home and I won’t tell him about it.” She shrugs. “Lance has a good heart, but he’ll give us hell if he catches wind of it.”

She glances at Keith, briefly, and sees that he’s watching her with an odd expression. She wishes she knew him well enough to read his face. 

“That sounds harder than it needs to be.” She shrugs again.

“Usually how life goes,” she remarks, continuing to talk at the space past his head. 

“Seems like it would be easier to just go eat together,” Keith continues, and — what? What kind of normal person does these things? “I really didn’t have anything going on tonight. This is fine.”

“Are you sure?” He’s turned and started walking up the sidewalk by the time her brain catches up, and she has to power walk to fall in stride with him. She clutches her flowers a little tighter against her chest. There are so many people out right now — this is why she tries not to eat on Main Street on the weekend. She thought she and Lance were going to go to Panera or something.

Keith ignores her question and keeps walking, even when she’s within speaking distance, so — it must be a yes. 

It’s several blocks to Balmera from Lance’s shop, and as they get closer to the bars and restaurants, the walkway becomes even more crowded. She knows where she’s going, but there’s no telling if Keith’s familiar with it, and she doesn’t want to lose him in the crowd regardless. She steps as closely as she can without running him over.

A group of people taking up most of the sidewalk and coming from the opposite direction force her to step behind him or be run over, and she can’t help but give every one of them an irritated look. How hard is it to take up a little less space?

When she looks up, expecting to see the back of Keith’s head — he’s gone. It’d only been a couple of seconds, maybe less! Seriously?

She can navigate the crowd, but it isn’t easy and she’s not tall enough to really  _see_. He could be nearby and she might not even notice him. She doesn’t have his number to contact him — and the only way to get it would be to call Lance and ask, but… that’s not going to happen. Her best bet is to keep walking towards Balmera and hope to find him there. 

She stops at the crosswalk to wait for her signal to go, and mentally maps out how much further she has to walk. The sea of people around her is really more than she ever wants to deal with, and the less of it there is to suffer through, the happier she’ll be. If her memory is correct — and she doesn’t come down here as often as Shay would probably like her to — it’s just a couple more blocks. The crowd will hopefully be a little more manageable the further she gets from the center of things. 

She powerwalks across the street because being in the road makes her nervous, whether it’s allowed or not, and she is just sighing in relief when an arm wraps around her shoulders. Instinctively she pulls away, and when she looks up to see who it is that’s grabbed her, she’s — honestly surprised to see that it’s Keith. 

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to just grab women in public without some warning?” she complains, because she’s  _sensitive_ and was halfway through imagining how she was going to fight him off before she realized it was him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought you saw me from the other side of the street. I didn’t expect to lose you in the crowd.” The length of his arm across her shoulders is a pleasant weight, and she finds herself liking it. 

“Sorry, you just — freaked me out. I wasn’t paying attention,” she admits. He doesn’t remove his arm, and that’s probably for the best. There's no other good way for them to stay together, on the off chance something sweeps her away again — one hand is still full of flowers, and she’s carrying her phone and wallet in the other. 

They walk the rest of the way to Balmera without incident. Thankfully she was right — the closer they get the less packed the walkway is; the super popular restaurants and bars are behind them. When they reach the door, Keith lets go of her to pull it open, and they step inside. 

 

* * *

 

Shay is a lovely woman that Lance (and thus Ezkir) have known through Hunk for several years. Sometimes Ezkir is half convinced that Shay’s success is what drove Lance to start his own business, but she has yet to voice that opinion. 

They’re busy but not packed to the gills — there are a couple of large parties waiting in line to be seated ahead of her and Keith, but she can see a couple of empty booths when she cranes her neck around everyone’s heads. Shay catches sight of her on the way across the floor — and they must be truly short handed if Shay’s working the floor on a Friday night — and the customers part like water for her as she comes through.

“Ezkir!” She looks excited to see her, and Ezkir can’t help but smile back at her. Shay’s good attitude is always infectious. “I didn’t know you were coming in tonight. Where’s Lance?” She looks past Ezkir and must see Keith, and she can  _feel_ the moment that Shay makes her assumption. The other woman’s gaze is heavy on the flowers in the crook of her elbow. “It’s nice to see you, Keith,” she greets him, and gives Ezkir an unreadable look when he responds in kind. “Let me find you guys somewhere to sit.”

She picks up a couple of menus and they squeeze between the waiting parties to follow her through the restaurant. There’s a booth near the window that shows the street, ad Shay seats them there with a smile. 

“I’ll be right back to take your orders, okay?” She — didn’t really expect Shay to be theirwaitress, but Ezkir is over being confused for the night. She’s just going to let whatever happens, happens.

She settles into her side of the booth, sitting her wallet and phone next to her on the seat and propping her flowers up in the corner next to the wall. She’s not sure what else to do with them. They’re pretty, and she wants them to last. That’s all she knows. 

When she looks up at Keith, he looks a little out of sorts, staring in the direction of Shay’s retreating back. She can’t help but smile at him.

“I have to be honest, I’ve been here quite a bit and Shay’s never given me this much special treatment.” Or any special treatment, really. “You must be a big deal.”

“I’m going to take your word for it,” he says, the crease in his brow straightening out. Relaxed is a good look on him. Well, everything she’s seen so far is a good look on him.

“So… how do you know all of my friends?” she asks after deciding on her drink. Shay’s peach tea is  _amazing_.

“I went to school with Hunk and Lance,” he says, looking toward the kitchen like Hunk might stick his head out at the sound of his name.

“…really?” She can’t help the look she gives him. School may have been the better part of a decade ago, but she thinks she’d remember Keith in their friend group. “How did we never meet?”

“I moved away before my senior year, lived with my cousins for a little while. Wanted to go to college out there, and thought I’d save myself some money and get the in-state tuition. I actually just made it back into town a few months ago.”

“Oh… that explains it, then. I was only here for my senior year. I must have just missed you. Lance took me under his wing on the first day, or I never would have made any friends by myself.

She’s been idly looking through the menu as she talks, because the alternative that comes to mind is staring, and when she glances up at him she’s surprised to see him looking at her. “I find that hard to believe. You seem… friendly,” he assesses, and she can’t help but laugh a little. 

“I used to be super reclusive. Didn’t talk much to anybody. I’m a little bit better now, but not by much.” She shrugs. It’s just a fact of her life. Lance seems to be the only one that gets it about her, even though he’s a pretty social butterfly when he has the time. Hunk and Shay love having people around, and even Pidge seems to like being around people most of the time — unless she’s working on some groundbreaking project. 

“I’m kind of the same,” he admits, rolling a shoulder. “If I’m not at the gym, I’m usually at home.”

“You mean you don’t spend all your evenings running Lance’s errands?” she asks with a little smile, and it’s gratifying to see him return it. 

Before he can say anything, Shay appears at her elbow, and she looks full of even more energy than usual. “What would you like to drink?” she asks, pen at the ready, like it’s normal for the owner to take people’s orders. Heck, for all Ezkir knows, maybe it is. Usually Shay just comes by and chit chats with her and Lance for a little bit; she’s never done this.

Keith orders a water and she orders her peach tea, and Shay buzzes off — almost literally — to wherever drink orders are made. Honestly, the restaurant industry is a mystery to her. 

“She seems pretty worked up about something,” Ezkir can’t help remark, watching her go. 

“There’s no telling with her,” Keith replies, and she hums in agreement. Shay has a perpetual and infectious good attitude, and sometimes she gets knocked over the line from ‘happy’ to ‘delighted’ by something as small as a cute video on facebook. 

“Well, when you’re right, you’re right,” Ezkir says. It feels stilted. Why is it so hard, all of a sudden, to get the conversation to flow again?

Thankfully Shay returns quickly, their drinks in hand. She sets them down on the coasters and folds the tray underneath her arm to take their food orders. Mostly Ezkir sort-of wonders how people actually balance things on those trays without losing them. Once Shay leaves, taking the menus with her, Ezkir feels a little at a loss. She doesn’t have anything to busy herself with, anymore.

The silence stretches out between them, and this is honestly what Ezkir was expecting to happen when Lance sent her off with a stranger for dinner. She’s on the verge of picking up her phone when Keith speaks.

“So… peach tea?” he asks, and — right. She’d been so focused on the weirdness that she hadn’t even put her straw in her drink. 

“Yeah,” she says, nodding. She unwraps her straw. “It’s really good.” Her dad used to make the _best_  peach tea when she was a little girl, but that was a long time ago. “Do you want to try it?” He looks like the kind of guy that would never order something like it for himself, and that means he’s missing out. She drops the straw in the glass, gently pushes it across the table towards him.

He’s wearing another unreadable look, but he picks up the glass and takes a drink, so she’s calling it a win regardless.

“It’s pretty sweet,” he says, decisive, once he’s sat it back down. She can’t help but smile at him. Why is she smiling at him?

“This is the only place in town that gets it right,” she says, pulling it back across the table and taking a drink herself. “The flavoring that everywhere else uses leaves a weird aftertaste.” She hums around the straw. “Or they just don’t use enough sugar.

He laughs a little at her, there, and the inexplicable smile on her face is back, apparently to stay. 

They sit in amiable silence for a little while — the song playing overhead is something she likes, and she’s pretending that bebopping along in her seat makes the silence less awkward and also doesn’t make her look like a fool. Once it changes, though, to something more Top 40, she can’t help focusing on Keith again. She kind of feels bad for him, stuck at dinner with her. 

“So… do you help Lance often?” he asks, apropos of nothing, and it takes her a moment to mentally catch up, to find the words.

“Ah… not really?” she shrugs and takes another drink, looking for more words. Why is talking so difficult? “Usually I just hang out and keep him company. I didn’t know how to use the register before today. He’s very… proud about doing it on his own,” she says, because if Keith’s known Lance as long as he said, he knows that about him already. “Do you work with — Allura?” It feels weird to use the woman’s first name, but she’s been curious since Keith asked for the arrangement back in the ship. 

“No,” Keith says, taps his fingers briefly on the edge of the table. “I can’t believe Lance hasn’t told you about her.”

“What do you mean?” She won’t say that she knows  _all_ of Lance’s secrets, but she does like to think she knows most of them.

“We were always a year behind her in school, but he’s been carrying a torch for her the moment he saw her for the first time, I think.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what happened after I left and she graduated, but we ran in the same circles for a long time. Lance was just —”

“A total flirt like always?” she asks, and he nods, takes a drink. 

“I still talked to Allura a little when I moved away — she came to college in the city I moved to, surprisingly. She and Shiro are close, and when I did make it back to town we went out to dinner together.” He grins. “You should have seen the look on Lance’s face when I told him.”

“I can only imagine.” Ezkir can’t help but laugh. “So did you order flowers for her, or…?”

“Nope.” Keith pops the ‘p’, looking smug. “I agreed to take them over for him, but ‘Loverboy Lance’ thinks this is an effective way to remind her that he exists, so…”

“He’s ridiculous,” she sighs. “I can’t believe that’s my best friend.” He laughs.

“If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t have met,” and —

Shay pops up at her elbow before she can formulate a reply, which is probably a good thing, because she has  _no idea_  what to say to that. 

“Hunk made your fries with extra love,” Shay tells her, setting the plate in front of her. “And he wants me to remind you both that you’re invited to game night tomorrow. Six PM sharp.”

“Yes ma’am,” she agrees — or acknowledges, more like, because realistically she probably won’t go. This is already more socialization with not-Lance parties than she gets in several days. “Tell Hunk I say thank you,” she continues, because somewhere along the way ‘extra love’ became code for ‘extra seasoning’ somewhere along the way, and Hunk’s secret seasoning mix is honestly to die for. 

“I’ll be there,” Keith tells her, and Ezkir finds herself wondering how ingrained he is in her friend group. Finds herself wondering if she can call it ‘her friend group’ if she only sees most of them once every couple of months, usually under duress from Lance. She’s a bad friend.

He’s ordered a burger monstrosity that rivals hers — though monstrosity is never the right word, because really Hunk’s food is a work of art — and she digs in to her food to distract her brain. The train of thought she was on is only a bad one to have out in public with a stranger.

 

* * *

 

Dinner doesn’t drag out, but they do spend longer at the restaurant than she’d expected. She’d eaten what felt like too much, but Shay had come by with a sundae that she said they’d mismade and two spoons on the table, and, well. She couldn’t tell her no. 

It only took a little nudging to get Keith to help her eat it, though she thinks she may have put in most of the work. Keith looks none-the-worse for wear, while she thinks she might die. 

She tells him as much, leaning back and stretching her legs out beneath the table like it’ll help. He smirks at her, looking amused, as if her faux-misery is funny, and she puts on an affronted look. “You’re not fair,” she accuses, and the smirk softens into something more like a smile.

“What do you mean?”

“You ate just as much as me. You should be just as miserable as me,” she says. It’s really not that bad — she’ll be ready to walk home in like, ten minutes, but…

“It’s all the extra love on your fries,” Keith says, and he leans back in his own seat. The inside of his leg presses against her knee — she is stretched into his space, after all — and it… doesn’t move.

They talk for the next few minutes, though she’s not sure  _what_ they talk about. She’s too old to be hyper-focused on the way  _his_ leg is touching  _her_ leg, but… she is. He’s unfairly good looking, she can be unfairly distracted by him.

When Shay comes by and drops off the ticket, Ezkir makes a valiant grab for it, but Keith has the audacity to pluck it right out her fingers. 

“I can pay,” she says, feeling a little indignant. It is only occurring to her now that Shay never asked if they were going to split the bill. 

“You  _were_ unpaid labor,” he says, fingers curling further around the receipt. “It’s what Lance would want.”

“It might be what Lance  _wants_ , but he knows better than to do it,” she insists, reaching for the ticket. It’s like he’s teasing her with it.

He catches her by the wrist, and — ugh. “You can pay next time, if you want,” he compromises. She’s so caught up between his hand on her skin and the idea of a ‘next time’ that he manages to pass his card and the bill off to Shay before she can make another grab at it. ‘Next time’ is a weird idea. The only person Ezkir regularly sees  _or_ eats with is Lance. Keith must just not know that.

While Shay is gone, Ezkir debates her way into getting to leave the top, and she waits until Shay’s bringing Keith’s card back to tuck the bills directly into her hand. Keith doesn’t need to know she tipped 100% — and she wouldn’t do it in other places, but Shay’s her friend and it feels like a secret ‘so there!’ move.

“Have a good night, guys,” Shay says when she turns away from the table. Ezkir can’t help but think there was a twinkle in her eye, but it was probably just the low-hanging lamp over their table.

Keith gets up, then, and it takes Ezkir a few moments to gather her things before she can follow him out the door. If nothing else, she is grateful to have someone to walk her back down Main Street — it’s too late and too busy for her to be comfortable walking that far alone.

She’s not expecting it when Keith winds his arm around her shoulders again, though. He must just be working with their previous experience, which is sensible. She doesn’t want to get lost in the crowd, anyway, so it’s not like it’s a problem. He’s warm and the night is cool, too. When he steps to the side and pulls her a little closer, out of someone’s way, she opts to stay nestled against him. Conservation of body heat, and all that. She’s honestly surprised he’s not cold; he’s wearing less than she is, but she doesn’t ask.

The walk back to the other end of Main Street is long, longer than before now that even more people are out and about, and it’s a walk they make mostly in silence. She’s not naturally talkative, and there’s a part of her that thinks Keith isn’t, either. It’s not like she minds at all, and it’s a much more comfortable silence than the awkward one they’d sat through for a while in the restaurant. She spends a fair amount of the walk with her head tilted back, staring up at what she can see of the stars. Keith is steering her, anyway, and it helps keep the overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by people at bay. 

It’s only when they come to Lance’s storefront that they stop, and she turns her attention to Keith. He’s looking at her, and his eyes are lovely from up close.

“Are you parked near here?” he asks, glancing in the direction of the public parking further down the street. 

“Ah… no? I walked,” she admits. When he gives her a  _look_ , she can’t help but defend herself. “It was a nice afternoon! And usually Lance takes me home, anyway.”

He hums. Looks away from her to the storefront, the street, and then back at her. “I’d offer to take you on my bike, but I don’t know if your flowers would make it.”

“It’s really not that far. I can walk.”

“There’s no way I’m going to let you walk home alone.” There’s something about his wording that rubs her a little the wrong way, and she steps out from underneath his arm.

“You aren’t going to  _let_ me do anything,” she stresses, feeling annoyed. “I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” she says, because that is also true. “But you’re not in charge of me.”

He looks surprised, and she’s close enough still that she can see the crease in his brow come back. “Look,” he says, glancing back down the street. “You don’t have to let me walk you home. I can call Lance if you’d rather have him do it. But you shouldn’t go alone, either way. There’s no telling who is out at this time of night.”

It’s not that he makes a bad argument, or that he doesn’t have a point. He does. And it’s not like she wants to trade inconveniencing Keith out for inconveniencing Lance instead. Ugh. 

“Alright, alright,” she gives in, and starts walking before he can reply. 

 

* * *

 

“Do you and Lance do this, usually?” Keith asks, and it takes her a moment to figure out what he’s talking about. They’ve been walking for a couple of minutes in amiable silence — her irritation had quickly faded away, and he’s as unperturbed as he was in the beginning. She keeps bumping into him, because she’s definitely cold now and he’s somehow still warm, but she doesn’t know that she can bring herself to ask for his arm back when there’s no  _need_ for it anymore. 

“Sometimes,” she says, bumping into him again. She’s not really  _trying_ to, but she’s also not really trying  _not_ to, either. “Usually it’s when he thinks I haven’t seen other people in too long. Most of the time if we eat together, he comes over and I make dinner.” She shrugs. “I’m not Hunk, or anything, but I can follow a recipe.”

“I was starting to wonder how Lance hadn’t starved to death,” he remarks, and she laughs. 

“I end up cooking a lot, and often, anyway, so… It just makes sense. He’s busy a lot with the shop and I worry about him, so it only makes sense to feed him.” She smiles over at Keith. Thinking about Lance makes her happy. “And besides, I take payment for feeding him out of his hide when we have the time.” Er. That doesn’t sound quite right. Keith gives her a weird look and she hurries to continue. “At video games!”

“Lance likes to think he’s good…” Keith remarks, shaking his head. 

“It’s all that optimism. Pidge grinds us both into dust regularly… but even I have a lot more time on my hands than he does.”

“What do you do for work?” he asks, and she takes a moment to stare down the crossing signal while she looks for the right words. It always feels so awkward to explain it.

“I, uh. Don’t?” So many people — herself included, previously — work themselves to the bone to live, and it feels bad to admit it to people that she doesn’t have to. “I… My mom passed away a few years ago. The house was paid off, my grandma and grandpa bought it, and with the insurance money…”

“I understand, and he reaches out to wrap his arm around her shoulder again. There’s something reassuring about it, and she lets herself lean into him. It shouldn’t be this hard to talk about it, still. It’s been years. Shouldn’t she be over it by now?

“The gym I help run across town is my mom’s,” he offers. “She, I dunno, passed her part on to me when my dad died. She couldn’t…” she bumps him gently with her hip, hopes it comes off reassuring the way she means for it to be. Damn her full hands. “She couldn’t stay here, after.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. Somehow, that sounds worse than what she has, but it’s not like he’s sharing to make it a competition. It provides an answer for why he’d suddenly come back into town, but it still doesn’t feel good to know it.

They fall into Ilene, and she wishes there was something she could say that could fix it — for either of them, really. But words can’t do that.

Instead, she says, “just another block.”

His arm stays around her the rest of the way.

 

* * *

 

“This is me,” she says, unwilling to step out of his warm hold now that she’s gotten it back. It’s not a long walk, normally, but they’d meandered most of the way, and it’s cooler than she’s used to. 

She knows how her house looks to a first time visitor, knows how it looks through the lens of knowledge that it’s just her living there. But Keith only briefly looks up at it — two stories and looming, higher still because the yard sits up three or four feet off the sidewalk’s level — and then he’s looking back at her.

“Thank you for walking me home. Do you — want a jacket or something? Or to come in and warm up? Or I could drive you back to your bike, even,” she says, full-on word vomit coming out of her mouth. Keith shakes his head, though, and the weird feeling she gets must be the cold, or possibly tiredness. It’s definitely not disappointment.

“I’ll just run back. It’s really not that far.”

“I feel like I told you that,” she says, and they stand there, smiling at each other, for — longer than is normal, probably. She shivers, after a moment, and he drops his arm to give her a ‘go on, go in’ gesture. She wouldn’t be surprised if he stands there and watches her go inside, too.

She’s right — Keith is still standing on the sidewalk at the foot of her stairs when she looks back in his direction. The door is unlocked, and she brings up what she can of her flower-holding hand to wave goodbye to him.

“Goodnight, Keith! Thanks for dinner,” she calls. He grins up at her, and she knows she mirrors it, unable to resist. He waves back at her before breaking off into a jog down the sidewalk, and she forces herself to go inside instead of watching him leave. 

**Author's Note:**

> in case you didn't see it at any other point, seriously. this is all just my gift to me because i'm half in love with keith.  
> and again, feel free to give me any SPAG corrections, but please be nice if you do. it'd mean a lot to me. <3
> 
> feel free to come see me on [tumblr](http://ragequilt.tumblr.com)


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